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Mogging is getting the PvP outta Me

It seems that time has come again.

About once every couple years, I start doing lots of PvP.

The reason is simple – there will be something my PvE soul craves that can only be gained through PvP.

Back in the day, during the Burning Crusade expansion, the best weapons I could get at my level of raid progression came not from raids, but from PvP. I played in the available battlegrounds until my Shadow Priest had one sweet looking mace, and my druid had a very, very tasty tanking weapon.

During the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, my reason for a sudden burst of PvP was to buy some PvP heirlooms, and also to get the Bind on Account commendations that could be mailed to my low level alts and converted into honor. I have an alt Rogue in full RP Dungeon Set 2 with a PvP black war tiger mount thanks to those commendations.

With Cataclysm, there are even more reasons to PvP, but I had managed to contain myself. Sure, I’d done a few Tol Barads to see if I liked it (results – as part of the guild chatting on vent, yes. By myself, not so much.) but other than that, I saw the Seagull pet and somehow just said no.

Mogging has changed all that.

I’ve been looking at all the gear sets available for my Hunter, my Druid, my Warrior and my Paladin. For my Warrior, I decided on the bright Red and Purple superhero costume from Outlands dungeons, and ran those dungeons until I had it complete. I love it, it certainly stands out.

Sadly, that outfit is now thrown out the window.

I posted my disappointment with the Hallows Eve season drop rates…. with one day still left in the holiday.

Yes, that’s right, the day after I posted that the Helm never drops for me, it dropped. The last chance of the year, on the only character that I wanted to have it.

By the way, now that I know that whining on the blog results in getting what I wanted, I’d like to go on the record by saying that I’ve been wanting world peace and freedom from oppression for all people year after year, and it has yet to drop. I’m very disappointed in the drop rate for world peace and freedom from oppression. Just saying.

Ah, if only we could whine to God and have our prayers be answered, instead of having to pull together, grow up, deal with the situation and do it ourselves. Talk about a dev that doesn’t listen to customer feedback!

Returning to relevance, now that I have a kick-ass helm for my Warrior, I need a new outfit that complements it. I had some great suggestions from Twitter, but I’m still stuck.

What does that have to do with PvP?

Well, as I’ve been browsing through item sets, I keep coming back to what I think are the coolest looking sets in the game.

The level 60 Field Marshal PvP epic sets and weapons.

The Paladin set in particular, with the golden glow and incredible asymmetrical pauldrons with level 60 PvP shield are gorgeous.

The prices are very, very cheap for these items as well… at least, they are right now. With Transmogging coming in 4.3, I would be vastly surprised if these amazing-looking sets didn’t see a bigtime price bump, based on looks instead of functionality.

The prices are cheap enough that, by simply running random battelgrounds four or five times, you can earn enough Honor Points to buy the full set plus weapons. Yes, they are that cheap. An afternoon on your level 85 and you can have, not just a good set, but a great set.

No, really. Check out my Hunter.

Because they are so cheap right now, I imagine that there will be a lot of characters dressed in them come 4.3. They won’t have rarity value. If that is a concern for you, and I know I do like standing out from a crowd, then they’re not going to be very attractive to you.

The Paladin set just looks so awesome, though. I can imagine a Paladin with full Field Marshal gear, with shield, astride the Tyrial Charger mount. Gonna look bitchin’.

It does leave me with an ethical dilemma to consider, a dilemma that only an MMO player deeply into insanity could even consider. You know, someone like me.

Since I never earned the PvP Field Marshal set when it was very, very hard to get, excruciatingly hard to get, and since I do not play PvP much right now (or ever), is it fair for me to have a character wear it in 4.3?

Oh, I’m going to wear it, did you see how hawt my Hunter looks up there? It’s just amazing to me that I even have these qualms. The only reason I do is because I respect the skill and effort that went into earning those sets when they were ‘the shit’ back in the day.

It’s been a long, long time since those halcyon days of our MMO youth, and I think half the players today probably don’t even know there was a time when there could be only ONE top PvP player with access to buy the best gear per faction, per server at any one time.

Think of how things are now, and consider that for a moment. Do you remember? Were you there? Did you compete?

There was a time, and it wasn’t really that long ago, where the PvP battlegrounds were isolated, each server its own island, there were no battle groups. And on each server, there was a leaderboard for each faction. And for each faction, there was a vendor that had THE SHIT, but only the single solitary #1 ranked PvP player per faction could access and buy those items from the vendor.

And that leaderboard got reset once per week, just like raids.

Every week, you logged in to see where you ranked, and to see what you could buy.

Sorry for the digression, but I’ve been playing a lot of PvP this week, so I’m recalling the past. In some cases, in living color. SON of a bitch, stunlocking f’ing rouges, mascara munching menaces making me miserable.

As long as I’m on that topic… can you imagine if PvE raiding had worked the same way?

What if, instead of drops from individual bosses, or only drops from bosses, PvE raiding had been setup so that there was a weekly leaderboard, and you could buy your raid gear, and what iLevel of gear you had access to from the vendor was based on your ranking against the rest of the server on hard modes completed that week, group challenges achieved, speed to completion, etc.

Each week, the raid teams would log in to see where they ranked on their server to see if they could run to the vendor to buy better gear.

Sure as hell would ramp up competing for progression, huh?

God, can you imagine? Sure, say that there could be a 2nd through 50th place vendor so it’s not like there wasn’t good stuff to push for, but if there was that vendor with the ultimate shit, the really GOOD shit, that only the 1st place raid team could access each week… just, holy shit.

Sigh. Potty humor. I’m in the weeds, gotta pull this golf cart back on course.

I’ve been playing PvP. Right. Got it.

My Hunter was the first to go in and complete the set. I’d been looking for the Ironhide set, and the pieces just aren’t to be found on our AH. The level 60 Hunter PvP set looks great, and goes with one of THE best bow models in the game, so I was happy to gather it all up in one night.

My Paladin alt, though, is having difficulties.

My Paladin alt, who is tanking his way through the LFD with Cassie as a Healing Disc Priest, was level 47 when I realized I wanted that set.

We are leveling together, questing and pugging, and we wear the same heirlooms. Our XP has remained consistently close from 1 to 47.

I know you gain XP from battlegrounds now. So, I had the bright idea of shutting off XP gain, doing random Battlegrounds to gain Honor Points on my own, and then once I reached level 60 I could buy the set and shield, be good to go, and never throw our leveling off the rails.

So, I did that.

I was amazed at how much longer the queue times were for low level PvP as opposed to level 85. At 85 on my Hunter, I was getting a random PvP battleground to pop almost every minute.

I also found that I still love Arathi Basin, I like Eye of the Storm, I loathe Warsong Gulch, and Alterac Valley is horrible. I love AV, but now it’s over one way or another in about 5 minutes. Meh.

At level 47 on my Paladin, it was taking 30 minutes or more for a BG. Wow.

And the battles were hard as hell on my Paladin. Warsong Gulch was just brutal. And the Honor Point gain? Man, it was taking forever to get any points at all.

Well, I turned XP gain back on, and quested with Cassie some more, and noticed she was ahead of me by about 40% on XP somehow. So, this weekend I did a random BG with XP on, to kinda get caught up.

The group popped in less than a minute.

Wait a minute….

An ancient piece of news from MMO Champion was dredged up from the cob-webbed depths of my brain housing group.

I remembered reading that you could turn off XP gain, and if you queued up for a Battleground that way, it threw you into a separate ‘twink’ bracket, so you only played against other twinks.

Well, panda poop. That’s no fun!

No wonder PvP was brutal if I was playing against twinks, and no wonder queue times were so long since you’re not seeing folks just doing a quick BG to have fun and break up the leveling grind.

So, what to do? Cassie doesn’t like BGs, and I can’t hardly blame her. As a Disc Priest, she’d have a big fat target on her back. And a glowing red arrow floating over her head, most like. But I don’t want to try and do fifty different 30 minute long queues against twinks just to get the Honor Points I need.

Hell, that almost sounds like work!

Epics for nothing and the Honor for free, that’s the way we like it around here, right?

Sigh.

So, what we’re thinking is, we’ll quest together to 60, which is when I’ll be eligible to buy the items from the legacy PvP vendor. I’m level 51 now, that ain’t so hard.

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24 thoughts on “Mogging is getting the PvP outta Me”

I highly doubt they’ll change the cost, they have it set at those prices so that people that level can actually purchase them. They’re VERY solid pieces for that level too, last you into th emid 60s, and it only takes an afternoon to earn even at lower level. Level 70 is even better, you get a full, complete, every slot filled set of the season 4 that lasts you pretty much all through northrend, for about 1800 honor. Plus it’s REALLY nice having a cohesive set of armor instead of looking like a space-clown gear, at least until transmog comes out.

Oh, and for the record… my shaman has two tankards of Terror… best looking maces in the game… the only question is do I transmogrify my Dranaei into a dwarf or wait until pandaria and make a panda… choices choices choices..

I’m going minimalist on my druid – I wanted to use the level 5 starter armor, until Blizz noted it was greens+ /pout

Then! I encountered a quest in the Hinterlands, dealing with that multi-tier monstrosity the trolls live in, and the reward was a leather invisible shirt. I kid you not – put it on, its invisible! WooHoo! I can show off my Epic Shirt, or my cowly bovine abs, yessir! The same range of quests offer a number of minimalist shoulders too. Basically like the hunter heirloom gladiator style, but with one whole side missing. I’ve found 3 different colors so far. Then for the hat, I’m currently thinking of an eye patch – there are a few options for those. My buddy suggested furry pants so I can run around looking like a bovine satyr – haven’t found any yet – but I did find a nice aboriginal skirt that’ll do in a pinch.

I will say this though – the alliance pvp weapons and armor are 100% better looking than the hordes. I first started thinking about pvp sets for transmorging while on my alliance druid, and drooling over the wicked awesome staves, and the armor that looks so bitchin’. Then I switched over to my tauren and looked at the same gear horde side and was all ‘wtf’. Bleh. Hence my minimalist desires. Gonna be fun playing dressup!

I’ve actually been thinking of the Darkmoon Faire reissues for the Rogue Dungeon Set 2 for my Druid.

During Vanilla WoW, at level 60 I was a feral Druid, and had to accept that the Tier gear was all itemized for a Resto Druid. The Dungeon sets were as well.

BUT! The Dungeon Set 1 leather, while itemized for Rogue stats, was equippable by any leather wearer. I went through most of level 60 content and raids default equipped in the Shadowcraft set.

It was very frustrating at the time to know that I COULD upgrade the set I used, IF I was the ‘right’ class. Finally wearing the set I wanted (in appearance if nothing else) will feel like a little win.

Ah the joys or the horrors of decaying honor. My rogue still has the Field Marshall Set; not earned during decaying honor but fully earned at 60 during vanilla. I have and will always love the old battegrounds. The one thing that always bothered me was that I couldn’t get much use out of the old 60 pvp gear when Burning Crusade was the “new” expansion. I’m a pack rat so I saved the set, just something about the color combo and for me the hours of guarding the dang bridge. 4.3 will allow me to have my about town set be my “good” set, and if many others are able to get it sweet; just gives me many more ways to “hide” stealthily in a crowd.

ok, BB, I have ran my rogue thru more than 20 different BG’s (heck I got 500 honor kills! and made a lot of my levels this way) – and I still dont have enough points of any kind to get these items. What could I be doing wrong? I just made lvl 70.

Syggy, are you checking the vendor that only sells legacy armor, and the other vendor that sells legacy weapons? They are separate from the normal PvP vendors. Here, i will link the set on Wowhead that I’m talking about for your examination, as a comparison. All level 60 PvP epic gear from the legacy vendors are of comparable prices.

Thank you BB! Now, the light bulb has gone oft over de head. Ok, I now see from your links and found the person. I got over 2100 and found the dark blue pvp set of lvl 70 :) And weapons! Oh my, what weapons! Thats what I love about this site – one does not have to be a bear butt to learn. Thank you very much for the 2 links. Now to go on for more blood. :) And believe it or not, I really dont care for pvp, but it grants one levels faster since the only heirloom I have is a cape. :)

I’m kind of excited about 4.3. Transmogrification especially. I’ve been grinding for a few things I always wanted :-)
I soloed Heroic Mechanar till I got the sun eater, I’m running dailies for shattered sun offensive to get the tabard and shield. I want to try to run gruuls lair to get my T4 shoulders and maybe try Naxx to get slayer of lifeless.

I’m pretty jealous of the helm. I ran horseman every day on paladin AND warrior got no helm, sword dropped for pally.

So. . . what are we gonna do about the big stupid belts that they make us wear at lvl 85 now? I have the field marshal’s aegis but I’ve also got a huge blue belt that covers from nipples to nads on my dwarf. Kinda ruins the experience. Am I missing something?

I haven’t picked out a belt for my Paladin set yet, but I like the Omega sign on my Hunter’s Firelands belt with the PvP set, so I’m keeping that.

You’ve got a great point, I haven’t even looked at the belt issue for Paladins.

Also I haven’t looked yet to see if the original Paladin PvP 60 Aegis set helm is what I want, or if the helm you can get by doing the Paladin class quest in BRD (a big golden full helm) is a better choice.

I’ve e-mailed you photos of my hunter mogged up before, but I think the thing about mogging that pleased me the most was the “any ranged” aspect. So, I was able to pull out Merciless Gladiator’s Crossbow of the Phoenix and add that to my outfit. Not that I ever would have gotten rid of that crossbow for any reason, but it really tickled me to be able to use it.

Still working on sets for my (Tauren) paladin and (goblin) Shaman. The problem with the goblin is that the kilts all look funny that scrunched up, and I want to go with a kilt look, but not one that’ll be overused.

That all being said, it’s not just the legacy pvp vendors that have old PVP items. If you can get tier4, 5, or 6 tokens, you can trade them in for PVP gear on the Isle of Q’D.

And to follow up to this, I hopped onto the PTR yesterday and there’ll be vendors in Area 52 that seller “older” PVP gear (the pricing is all buggy currently), and I believe you’ll be able to get off set pieces in your respective capital city. The prices, as I mentioned, are pretty fubar’d – ranging from gold, to high pvp amounts, to even requiring an arena rating – but I’m hopeful that’ll get resolved before they go live.

Likewise, if you really dig any aspect of the DK Starting gear (either the greens or the blues), you’ll be able to buy both from a “Quartermaster” vendor in the lower level of Acherus.